An episode? A season? A chapter? A book?
If you were to ask my parents and family to describe one notable fact about me as a child, they would unanimously say something along the lines of “you made a friend everywhere we would go” – this is something I held onto as I grew up: the importance of friendship. In school I had friends in every corner of campus, people that I loved having fun with and have some important core memories with but as I’ve gotten older and especially since having Kamden, I have found that sometimes there are people meant for only a season of your life or a chapter of your story and that’s ok. As I’ve gotten into my thirties, life has had unique challenges (I don’t think that’s unique to me) and I’ve discovered that I am far more comfortable keeping a smaller circle of close friends, but I’ve also discovered that keeping that circle small means exercising a certain level of trust and vulnerability that can be scary to share.
I hate being vulnerable, not many people enjoy it, but as a self-proclaimed people pleaser and the owner of some real lifetime movie type relationship trauma, vulnerability has always equaled judgement or loss and I’ll tell ya what, it’s a real kick in the ass to realize that you’ve self-sabotaged in a dark season of struggle and your strongest relationships were nearly obliterated because of it.
So how do you go about fixing relationships when you’ve inadvertently closed yourself off? How do you show people that you’re still invested in their lives after being too focused on your own survival to be a good friend to them? Do you keep showing love the way you always have or does that make you look desperate? Do you make more of an effort than you did when things were good or does that make you seem needy? The answer is that I don’t know, LOL. If you’re going through something similar just know that there isn’t a one size fits all remedy for this. The only advice I can really give is to walk through it with empathy for the way your actions may have impacted people that you care about – remember that intention doesn’t negate impact. You may have been going through something, but the world didn’t stop turning and you may have missed important moments in your friend’s lives. Continue to love them but respect boundaries and give them time – If it feels like the chapter is complete, it’s ok to close the book, but if there are still some blank pages with room for more stories then continue to put in the work.
“The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.” - Socrates